CA: SamTrans Trash Team Goes 'Clean' for Earth Day

SamTrans works every day for a cleaner planet, and on Earth Day, the bus agency is taking that effort directly to El Camino Real — to improve the riding experience for its customers and as a good community partner.

On April 22, a team of SamTrans employees will visit several bus stop locations along El Camino Real to clean up trash that is accumulating on the roadway and sidewalk. Customers and members of the community are invited to join the effort.

El Camino Real is SamTrans’ most heavily traveled corridor. The four bus routes that operate on El Camino carry nearly 50 percent of all SamTrans trips.

The “Trash Team” will clean up the area near the stop and will hand out reusable SamTrans shopping bags to members of the public who join us to help. Members of the team also will be traveling between stops by bus, making it an environmentally-friendly clean-up trip all the way around.

“More and more bus passengers are choosing public transportation as the greener solution for their commute,” said Mark Simon, executive officer for SamTrans’ Public Affairs. “SamTrans believes that our responsibility to protect the environment includes being a good member of the community, which is why our staff is leading the clean-up effort. Our bus stops get regular maintenance, but we want to make sure that even the area around the stops is as clean as possible.”

Single occupant vehicles produce just under a pound of carbon dioxide for every mile they drive, making public transit an environmentally sensitive alternative.

SamTrans is tackling sustainability on several fronts. Later this year, the bus agency will roll out its first hybrid buses to replace aging vehicles. The district also is a member of the Grand Boulevard Initiative, an effort to encourage mixed-use developments and walkable, transit-friendly neighborhoods along El Camino Real.